Santa Cruz, CA

Including Pinnacles NP and Big Sur

April 16th - May 13th, 2023

"Surf City"

We decided to include Santa Cruz as a trip destination for it’s proximity to Pinnacles National Park, Monterey Bay, and Big Sur. Our Airbnb was located in Santa Cruz which is really cool surf city.

Pinnacles NP ended up surprising us, it’s a small park but it’s really unique and contains one of our favorite hikes we’ve done.

Santa Cruz is also surrounded by redwood state parks such as Big Basin Redwoods SP and Henry Cowell Redwoods SP, as well as other amazing state parks like Wilder Ranch SP and Natural Bridge State Beach.

One weekend we did a Big Sur road trip, which included many stops along Highway 1, including Point Lobos Natural Reserve, Bixby Bridge, Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, and Garrapata State Park.

We also did a lot of fun city things, such as the Santa Cruz boardwalk/carnival and the Monterey Bay aquarium.